1 - youngblood corrected

Global Media Journal Fall 2012 - Youngblood 1

Integrating usability and accessibility into the interactive media and communication curriculum

Norman E. Youngblood

Auburn University, Auburn AL

Abstract

One of the challenges of developing an interactive media curriculum is the need to

balance production skills, such as coding and using development tools, with visual design and

design best practices, such as usability and accessibility. Usability, or how easy it is to use a site,

is critical because if a site is difficult to use, users will go elsewhere for the information or

service. In addition, poor usability has been demonstrated to undermine overall site credibility.

Accessibility is essentially how usable a site is by users with disabilities such as impairments in

vision, hearing, cognition, and motor skills. While students need to understand accessibility on a

legal level, particularly given the number of lawsuits related to website accessibility, they also

need to understand the issue on an ethical level. This article discusses the importance of usability

and accessibility and how to integrate these ideas into both interactive media creative classes as

well as lecture courses such as media and society and media law courses, and it includes a

discussion of sample exercises, sample assignments, and recommended resources.

Keywords: Usability, Accessibility, Curriculum, Teaching


Integrating usability and accessibility into the interactive media curriculum

The Internet, and particularly the web, have become critical communication channels and

have fundamentally changed communication on both a one-to-one and a one-to-many level.

Teaching students how to design effective online communication tools, such as webpages, is

more than a matter of teaching them how to write code or use a WYSIWG editor. Faculty need

to balance teaching students the basic building blocks, such as HTML and CSS, with teaching

students visual design and design best practices, particularly usability and accessibility.

Usability, or how easy it is to use a site, is critical. If a site is difficult to use, users will go

elsewhere for the information or service. In addition, poor usability has been demonstrated to

undermine overall site credibility (Wang & Emurian, 2005), and a loss of site credibility poses a

potentially critical problem for companies in fields that rely heavily on user trust, such as e-

government, e-commerce, e-health, and e-banking. Website accessibility is the usability of a site

for users with disabilities such as impairments in vision, hearing, cognition, and motor skills

(W3C, 2008). When web sites are not accessible, disabled users are at a disadvantage in an arena

that should serve as an equalizer rather than a barrier. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the

World Wide Web and founder of the World Web Consortium (W3C), argues that “the power of

the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone is an essential aspect” (W3C, 1997). Thus,

there is an ethical imperative for designers to take accessibility into account when designing a

website or other interactive product. There are also legal reasons for designers to take

accessibility into account as federal and state laws in the United States mandate that specific web

sites be accessible, particularly e-government sites. Recent court cases, particularly the National

Association of the Dead et al. v. Netflix, Inc. (2012), have raised the possibility that these


accessibility laws may be more broadly applied, and the federal government is consider applying

the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to the web, particularly for e-commerce and local e-

government sites (Department of Justice, 2010). This change will mirror how accessibility is

applied in the brick-and-mortar world, where most public buildings are required to have

wheelchair ramps and other accessibility features.

Given the importance of website usability and accessibility, it should not surprising that

scholars involved in teaching web design, have called on faculty to integrate usability and

accessibility into the curriculum. These calls have encouraged faculty to move beyond simply

addressing the cognitive objective of students learning guidelines, but to set affective objectives

as well. For example, Hayes (2002) argues for teaching students to take the role of the user

advocate when designing interactive material. Rosmaita (2006) calls for faculty to take “an

accessibility first” (p. 270) approach when teaching web design, requiring students to engage in

accessible design practices from the very beginning, noting that “it’s no fun writing accessible

web pages if you have to go back and unlearn everything in order to make your pages accessible.

If you keep accessibility in mind from the beginning, it’s much easier to implement” (p. 274). In

addition, Rosmaita argues that having students engage the material from an accessibility

perspective early on may mean more designers moving into the workforce who not only

understand how to make an accessible website, but also believe that accessibility is important

and “a good idea” (p. 274). Scholars from diverse fields have been calls for teaching accessibility

as part of the web design process, including scholars in information systems (Lazar, 2002),

technical communication (Palmeri, J. (2006) and mass communication (Royal, 2004).

This combination of students understanding how to make an accessible website and

embracing the idea that accessibility is important has the potential to counter some of the


problems Lazar, et al. (2004) identified in a survey of 175 web managers, addressing the

challenges designers faced in making websites accessible. Among the problems the web

managers identified were a lack of training and resistance by management. In several instance,

web managers expressed an active hostility toward modifying their designs to make their sites

more accessible. Incorporating accessibility throughout the teaching process gives educators an

opportunity to help students address these potential problems. The problems the study identifies

suggest that faculty should approach accessibility using both cognitive objectives, such as having

students understand how to build an accessible website, and affective learning objectives, such as

understanding why accessibility is important. In addressing these objective, students need to

understand usability and accessibility issues at a variety of levels including technical, legal and

ethical levels.

That said, it is also important that faculty talk about these issues in other classes. Faculty

need to address accessibility in media law classes so that students understand what the laws are

and the changing nature of how these laws are being applied, particularly the issue of the ADA

and the web discussed above. Faculty should also be talking about usability and accessibility in

media and society classes. For instance, usability can play a role in the success or failure of a

web-based technology or site, a particularly important issue in areas such as e-government.

Usability can also play a major role in bridging or widening the digital divide, particularly as

mobile devices have come to be seen as the great equalizer in the divide. Similarly, promoting

accessibility is a critical element of bridging the digital divide, as taking accessibility into

account during the design process helps prevents the marginalization of users with a disability.

As fundamental issues in Internet-based communication, faculty need to address usability

and accessibility across the curriculum. In doing so, faculty may need to look outside of mass


communication or communication literature and take a more interdisciplinary approach. Faculty

teaching web design should not see use usability and accessibility as areas that are only in the

domain of specific disciplines, such as technical communication, computer science or

information architecture. All design students need to be familiar with these issues, particularly as

they move into the workforce. This article addresses these issues by outlining what usability and

accessibility are, identifying courses that these issues might be taught in, and suggesting how to

integrate these concepts into both interactive media creative classes and lecture classes, including

a discussion of recommended readings, exercises, and assignments.

Background

Usability

Usability is a measure of quality, essentially assessing how easy something is to use

(Nielsen, 2012b). In the case of interactive media, usability experts usually look at quality in

terms of the interface. As Nielsen (2012) points out, usability has also come to mean the part of

the development process that focuses on making the interface easier to use. Nielsen breaks the

components of usability quality into five areas:

• Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they

encounter the design?

• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform

tasks?

• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how

easily can they reestablish proficiency?

• Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how

easily can they recover from the errors?


• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

Each of these areas represents an opportunity for a website to succeed or fail. Users

unable to easily navigate a website or easily complete a needed task are likely to leave the site. In

addition, usability problems may also lead to credibility problems for the website’s organization

(Wang & Emurian, 2005).

Why usability is important. When a website has usability issues, it presents several

problems. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is that poor usability keeps users from easily

completing the tasks that they came to the website to complete, which impedes communication.

Assuming the user can go elsewhere for the information or services, he or she likely will. This is

not, however, the end of the problem. Poor usability also undermines credibility. Wang &

Emurian (2005) argue that interface design, including usability, plays a significant role in

building trust, a “dimension of credibility” (p. 114). Credibility is a critical issue for sites that

require trust such as commercial sites (Chen & Dibb, 2009), corporate sites (Fogg et al., 2003),

and e-government sites (Huang, Brooks & Chen, 2009). Without trust in a site, users will likely

avoid it if possible, particularly in areas such as e-government (Teo et al., 2008; Warkentin et al.,

2002).

Usability problems can also undermine attempts to bridge the digital divide. Smith

(2011a) found that 35% of American adults own a smartphone and that 87% use their

smartphones to access the Internet, with 25% of smartphone owners using their phone as their

primary Internet access point. In a related study, Smith (2011b) found that overall, 45% of all

English- and Spanish-speaking cell-phone owners (Smartphone or feature phone) in the United

States used their phones for browsing the web. Phone-based web browsing was particularly

pronounced among groups typically included in the have-not side of the digital divide—non-


Hispanic Blacks (56%) and Hispanics (51%)—when compared to non-Hispanic Whites (39%).

These figures suggest that if designers do not pay attention to site usability on mobile devices,

they will tend to further disadvantage groups that lean more heavily on mobile devices as their

entry point for the Internet.

The need to pay attention to usability of websites on mobile devices underscores the need

to teach usability as more than just design standards. Design standards, such as the former

standard of using a house icon to indicate the home link, change. Usability principles, such as

those outlined by Nielsen, are less mutable, though, and can be applied to new communication

tools and changing trends as they develop. Understanding these principles and being able to

apply them to new technologies helps set students up to be able to play multiple roles in the

workplace. Students not destined to be designers come away with the ability to communicate

effectively with designers, putting them in the position to work on development teams, to be able

to evaluate designs, and to be an advocate for the user.

Accessibility

Teaching students to be user advocates is particularly important in accessibility, the more

narrowed application of usability, accessibility. An “accessible” website or product is one in

which functionality and content can be easily accessed by users regardless of their disabilities.

When designing for accessibility, designers need to create products that can accommodate a

variety of disabilities, including those related to vision, hearing, mobility, speech, cognition, and

learning (W3C, 2008). As with usability, however, faculty should be teaching students to move

beyond thinking about simple heuristics and think about “universal design,” the idea that

designers should create sites and applications so that everyone should be able to use them,

regardless of the technology the user selects to access them or the physical or cognitive


challenges of a user (Chisholm & May, 2010). This trend is by no means limited to websites and

applications, but extends beyond the computer and into architecture in the real world (Goldsmith,

2001). The current W3C accessibility standards, WCAG 2.0, call for website designs to meet

four basic accessibility principles that designers can use to help evaluate their websites. The

remember using the acronym

POUR (W3C, 2008).

• Principle 1: Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable

to users in ways they can perceive.

• Principle 2: Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable.

• Principle 3: Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be

understandable.

• Principle 4: Robust - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by

a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

WCAG 2.0 standards also spell out specific guidelines based on these principles, such as

providing text alternatives for any non-text content (i.e., images) “so that it can be changed into

other forms people need, such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or simpler language”;

making sure the site can be operated with just a keyboard; keeping navigation relatively the same

between pages and designing sites to maximize compatibility with future accessibility

technologies and software, such as browsers (W3C 2008).

Why accessibility is important. Accessibility is an issue for many Americans. The U. S.

Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey data (United States Census Bureau, n.d.)

reported that about 19% of non-institutionalized Americans have some sort of disability and that

this percentage increases to 38% in Americans over age 65. Internet use among Americans with


a disability is substantially lower (54%) than abled Americans (81%), and 2% of American

adults report having a disability or illness that limits their use of the Internet (Zickuhr & Smith,

2012). Internationally, over 600 million people have disabilities (Loiacono & Djamasbi, 2013).

W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee, who is also the chief architect of the web, argued early on that

there is an ethical imperative for making the web accessible and empowering users with a

disability, pointing out, “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone is an

essential aspect” (W3C, 1997). This call has been championed by both national and international

governments and non-governmental organizations. W3C accessibility standards and the premise

of equal access have formed the basis of national level accessibility laws in a number of

countries, including the United States (Donker-Kuijer, de Jong & Lentz, 2010; U.S. Access

Board, 2011) and Australia (Conway, 2011), as well as Japan, New Zealand, and members of the

European Union (Shi, 2007). The United Nations has also expressed its support for equal access

through the widely supported Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which calls

for countries signing the convention to “promote access for persons with disabilities to new

information and communications technologies and systems, including the Internet” (United

Nations, 2006; United Nations, 2007).

Despite these regulations, there are long-standing problems with website accessibility.

This includes not only e-commerce sites (e.g., Isa et al, 2011; Lazar et al., 2012), but also

corporate (e.g., Gilbertson & Machin, 2012; Loiacono, 2009) and governmental sites at all levels

(e.g., Olalere & Lazar, 2011; Youngblood & Mackiewicz, 2012; Yu & Parmanto, 2011). And the

problem is far from limited to sites in the United States (e.g., Goodwin, et al., 2011). Researchers

have raised a variety of concerns about the access issues posed by these problems, including

placing blind users at a disadvantage when they apply for jobs using online applications (Lazar et


al., 2012), obtain government information (e.g., Olalere & Lazar, 2011; Youngblood &

Mackiewicz, 2012; Yu & Parmanto, 2011), accessing e-learning information (e.g., Fichten, et al,

2009), and conduct e-commerce tasks (e.g., Kim & Lehto, 2012).

In some instances, these disparities have triggered lawsuits. While in-court victories have

been rare, in several cases, disability advocacy groups have negotiated out-of-court settlements

with major corporations, including the retailer Target Corporation and the video streaming and

rental company Netflix. In the case of National Federation of the Blind, et al. v. Target Corp.

(2006), the retailer agreed to make its website more accessible and agreed to a substantial

financial settlement, which included legal fees (National Federation of the Blind, et al. v Target

Corp., 2008). In National Association of the Deaf et al. v. Netflix, Inc. (2012), the settlement

included agreeing to make all of its Internet-based content closed captioned by 2014 as well as

paying legal fees. In many cases, including the Target and the Netflix cases, plaintiffs have based

their arguments on the Americans with Disability Act of 1990’s (ADA) mandate of equal access

to public space. The courts are supportive of this argument, and the judge in the Netflix case,

Michael Ponsor, argued strongly that “the fact that the ADA does not include web-based services

as a specific example of a public accommodation is irrelevant” and that “Congress intended the

ADA to adapt to changes in technology” (National Association of the Deaf, et al. v. Netflix, Inc.,

2012, p. 8), which requires courts have begun to agree with advocacy groups that the Internet is a

public space similar to a brick-and-mortar store (Palazzolo, 2013). As of 2010, the Department

of Justice is reconsidering how ADA should be applied to the Internet (Department of Justice,

2010). Daniel Goldstein, an attorney for the National Federation of the Blind, refers to these

court cases as “eat your spinach” cases. Much as children may not want to their spinach, even

though it is good for them, these court cases, while problematic for companies, often result, in


companies making sites more accessible, which brings with it advantages as “the market share

you gain is more than the costs of making your site accessible” (Palazzolo, 2013).

Although students need to understand accessibility from ethical and legal perspective,

they also need to understand that universal design has added benefits, and that these benefits can

help them make the case for pushing accessibility in the workplace, particularly during the

development process, where accessibility is easy and inexpensive to implement, in contrast to

having to retrofit an existing site, which can be time consuming and expensive (Loiacono, E. T.,

& Djamasbi, S., 2013). First, making a site accessible opens it up to new clients. In the case of

Netflix, providing closed captioning opens the door to the 7.8 % of Americans with a

handicapping hearing loss (Agrawal, et al., 2008) to subscribe to the service. Studies of e-

commerce website accessibility have also pointed to companies increasing their customer base

by making their sites more accessible (e.g., Maswera, 2008; Gutierrez, 2005; Xiong, et al.,

2009). Accessible design can also help make sites perform better on mobile devices (Brown et

al., 2010). Vanderheiden (1997) noted that as computer users became more nomadic and began

carrying computing devices with them, interfaces needed to more flexible. For example, having

alternative text for images might allow a sighted user to use a device at time when it would be

awkward or impossible to look at the device. In addition, the ALT attributes make sites more

accessible when sighted users turn off web images to conserve bandwidth and/or speed load

time, such as in areas without broadband and on mobile devices. Conversely, as mobile sites and

applications need to be more flexible, they are sometimes easier for non-sighted users to use

(Wentz & Lazar, 2011).


Teaching Usability and Accessibility

Having examined why it is important for students to know about usability and

accessibility, the article will now shift to pedagogical techniques for teaching students about

these issues. These techniques were developed with an eye toward creating low-to-no-cost

exercises. The exercises include both commercial and e-government sites. E-government sites

are particularly useful as looking at them can help attune students to the importance of usability

and accessibility because e-government sites fulfill an important role in providing information to

the public. These assignments, of course, could easily be adapted to other types of websites,

opening the door to classes that might deal with other types of critical public information,

particular those looking at health communication.

Usability

Usability testing can incorporate a wide range of techniques. Usability.gov, a U.S.

government website designed to be a “primary government source for information on usability

and user-centered design” (Usability.gov, n.d.a), lists a range of usability methods that can be

adapted to in-class exercises.

Card Sorting. Card sorting is an inexpensive, quick, and easy method for gathering user

input for designing the information architecture (essentially the outline) of a website. This

method typically involves a user sorting physical or virtual cards identifying types of information

and sorting this information into logical groups. The information card on the card could be based

on a specific web page on a site, a category of information, or a task the user might complete on

the site. In some cases, a facilitator might ask the user why he or she made a specific decision.

Card sorts are usually conducted as either open or closed sorts. Open sorts allow the user to

define the categories, while closed sorts require the user to place the cards in predetermined


categories. Card sorting can help identify how users group information; determine which

information should go together; as well as identify information labels that are confusing. It can

also help define site navigation structure by giving a designer better understand how users think

about information (Kaufman, 2006). As an example, a card sort might reveal that home

improvement store customers have two different approaches to organizing information. One

group may think about information in terms of strict categories, such as tools, power tools, drills.

A second group may be more task-oriented and think about items in terms of what room the user

might be working on. This finding might lead a designer to offer users two ways to find

information, through a categorical navigation system and a task/room-based navigation system.

Kaufmann (2006) offers a thorough and easily understandable discussion of setting up a paper-

based card sort, and the work is good option for a class reading assignment.

Web-based virtual card sorts offer an alternative to paper-based tests and have the

advantage of allowing designers to conduct multiple tests at the same time. It should be noted,

however, that Petrie, et al. (2011) caution that some users may find virtual card sorts more

cumbersome than paper-based ones. That said, they found little difference in the reliability of the

two methods. Readers interested in a comparison of virtual card sorts should look at Chaparro, et

al. (2008).

UX Punk’s WebSort (http://uxpunk.com/websort/) is a good virtual card sort resource for

students because it allows designers to create a free 10-person study, a sample size appropriate

for many class projects, particularly those not involving a real-world client. Students should be

aware, however, that real world testing should involve at least 15 users (Nielsen, 2004). WebSort

also allows users to participate in a sample study, and this is really where WebSort shines as a

teaching tool, particularly as the class can look at the results of the sample study. The WebSort


sample study is prebuilt and asks participants to sort a list of 42 items into categories using a

drag-and-drop interface. Some of the advantages of WebSort are that it runs in a web browser, is

platform independent, and does not require administrative privileges to run. The website can be

introduced as being a list of items for a hotel/resort website. This scenario is particularly useful if

you are using Felke-Morris’s (2013) web development textbook in class, which includes a case

study series based around a resort. Kaufaman’s (2006) and Usability.gov’s (n.d.b) discussion of

card sorting are good readings to pair with the in-class exercise.

Before getting students started on the exercise, it is useful to introduce it in much the way

one would when conducting a real world usability test, discussing the goals of the exercise, its

benefits to developers who might look at the results, and emphasizing that they are not being

tested. As with most in-class exercises, it is helpful to monitor how students are doing and, when

needed, remind them how the card sort works. The idea behind this approach is to model

facilitator behavior to help them prepare to run their own tests. It may be useful to base the script

for class on the recommendations from Kaufman (2006). Of note, while a faculty member might

not want to go through the consenting process with the students, it may be worth discussing what

the consenting process is and why it is important.

Setting up the exercise. A possible script might begin as follows:

“I’m working with a team to design a Website for a new resort on the southern California

coast. In order to make the site easy to use, we’re gathering input from people from some

of our target audiences. To do this, we’re going to run a simple card sorting exercise that

will help us understand how you think about the different pieces of content and

functionality on the site.”


Next, have students open the WebSort page (http://uxpunk.com/websort). Underneath

“Check it out,” have them select “Be a participant.” The faculty member should also open this

screen on his or her own computer, particularly if the computer can be projected on a screen.

Once the sample study is open, return to the script:

“On the left side of the screen is a list of terms that represent different pieces of content

and features of the site. I’d like you to group these terms into your own categories. You’ll

do this by dragging an item from the list on the left into the window on the right. You can

stack terms on top of each other to create categories. The names of the categories are up

to you. Let me know if you have any questions. You can begin when you are ready.”

It may be helpful for the faculty member to demonstrate how the system works by

creating one or two categories on screen and show students where the green “I’m Done!” button

is in the bottom right corner of the screen. Plan to allot at least 10-15 minutes for this part of the

activity.

Looking at the results. Once students have completed the demo study, the faculty

member should click on the “I’m Done!” button on the screen. When the study is completed, the

user automatically is moved to the results section. The results page has a list of recent users on

the right with the most recent user results, usually beginning with “anon” at the bottom of the

list. The instructor may find it is easier to be the last one to complete the card sort sot that their

name is at the very bottom of the list. On the right, the user is given a list of report to run. The

report view allows the selection of multiple users. Typically a faculty member would select

enough users at the end of the list to match the number of students who participated. This can be


done by clicking on the first user in the list and then shift-clicking on the last user in the list.

Next, go over the information in Category Summaries, Categories x Items, and Items x Items,

and discuss what might learn be learned from the data and why students made some of the

decisions they did. Typically, Category Summaries help identify how participants are thinking

about the information and what category names might be used in a navigation system, something

that is particularly helpful when working with dropdown menus. Categories x Items shows how

many times an item was placed in a specific category and helps when deciding which labels

should go with which page title or content heading. It may also help indicate that links to certain

menu items need be in more than one group. Items x Items shows the percentage of times each

item was grouped with another item, also helping with identifying items that might need to be in

more than one location.

When conducting the discussion on the results, faculty should consider encouraging

students to arrive at their own conclusions and to share their conclusions with the class, rather

than just explaining what conclusions the faculty member has drawn from the data.

Think Aloud Protocol. A think aloud protocol (TAP) study is usually a task-based

analysis in which a facilitator asks a user to complete a task while explaining what he or she is

doing and why he or she is doing it. Although it takes some users a little bit to get the hang of

talking through the process of completing the task, the results can prove very useful, even with a

limited number of users. Nielsen (2012a) says that for this type of study, you only need five

users to get good results, as additional users do not necessarily identify substantially more

problems. It is worth noting that the point of this type of study is to identify problems that need

to be corrected and not to prove a design or usability principle. Head’s (1999) article “Web site

redemption,” offers a good introduction to both task-based analysis using think aloud and to


usability testing in general. This exercise is a good first introduction to user-based usability

testing as it provides a clear demonstration of the power of usability testing in identifying

problems in a website.

Usability.gov (Usability.gov, n.d.c) offers a great example of a facilitator’s guide and

serves as the basis for the script described below. One of the goals of teaching students about

usability is for them to understand how it affects user access to information, and having them

participate and conduct a task-based study using an e-government site is a good way to drive

home the implications of website usability. In this exercise, students administer the test to each

other. It is helpful to give them two warnings at the beginning. First, it might get loud as people

begin talking. Second, while it may take a bit for users to get comfortable talking through their

actions, it is even harder for the facilitator to learn not intervene when a user has a problem.

Setting up the exercise. Before starting the exercise with the class as a whole, consider

modeling what students will be doing by having a volunteer come to the instructor workstation

and complete a task-based study with the instructor serving as the facilitator. Rather than having

the student repeat what he or she will be doing in the main exercise, consider having them

complete tasks on a website that they are already familiar with, such as the college or university

website. Possible tasks include having the student try to apply for graduate school or locate the

final exam schedule (this process should take about 5-10 minutes). Afterward, have the class

discuss what they have learned about the site from the demonstration. Next, have the students get

into pairs and pass out the following document for the think-aloud exercise, which borrows

heavily from Usability.gov’s (n.d.c) facilitator guide. Each student in the pair will take a turn as a

facilitator and participant. The sites listed below are local county websites in state the author

resides in; however, faculty should substitute counties and companies in their own regions.


Instructions for the facilitator:

• Before starting, clear the browser history to prevent visited links from previous

studies from showing up.

• Don’t be afraid to let the user get stuck. This is part of the testing process. Wait

until they are completely stuck before offering assistance or moving on to the next

task. Be sure to note the problem.

Read the following instructions to the user:

Thank you for agreeing to participate in this website evaluation. Today we are

asking you to serve as an evaluator of this website and to complete a set of tasks. Our

goal is to see how easy or difficult you find the site to use. We will make notes on your

reactions and opinions; so, we may ask you to clarify statements that you make from time

to time. We may also ask you to explain why you said or did something.

Here are some things that you should know about your participation:

• This is not a test of you; you’re testing the site. So don’t worry about making

mistakes.

• There is no right or wrong answer. We really just want to know if we

designed the site well for you.

• If you ever feel that you are lost or cannot complete a scenario with the

information that you have been given, please let me know. I’ll ask you what

you might do in a real-world setting and then either put you on the right track

or move you on to the next scenario.


• Finally, as you use the site, please do so as you would at home or your office.

I do ask that when looking for information, you do so as quickly and as

accurately as you can.

Open up one following municipal Websites as directed:

• http://www.leeco.us

• http://www.mobilecountyal.gov

Ask the user to complete the following tasks while talking through his/her decision

making process. Be sure to take notes on a separate piece of paper for the discussion.

1. Find out how to register to vote.

2. Locate information about what properties the following companies own and what

their property tax was last year.

Lee County: McDonalds Corp. Mobile: Smith & Bar-Stool Inc.

3. Find out how to pay your property tax and whether or not you can pay it online.

4. Find out when the most recent county commission meeting was and locate a copy

of the minutes.

5. You are thinking about adding on to your house. Locate the basic information on

when you need a building permit.

At the end of the exercise, ask the user to classify each task and record the appropriate

number:

1. I thought it would be easy but it was difficult

2. I thought it would be easy and it was easy

3. I thought it would be difficult and it was difficult

4. I thought it would be difficult but it was easy


Looking at the results. Once the class completes the tasks, which may take up to 30

minutes depending on how many of the tasks they are asked to complete, have the students

discuss what they found. Students are often surprised if they have problems finding information

on the sites, and this is an excellent opportunity to talk about credibility and trust issues. Another

issue that often comes up in the discussion is surprise that so much information is available

online. Many students are unaware that one can find out, at least to some extent, who owns what

property through a county website. Some counties will also let users check car registrations. This

opens up the opportunity to discuss privacy issues and the importance of privacy policies and

statements.

Accessibility. Introducing students to basic accessibility principles and guidelines such as

those found in Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act and WCAG 2.0 are good starting points

for teaching about accessibility. Knowing these basics does not, however, get students to really

grasp how important accessibility is. One approach to help get them to think about the issues is

to draw a direct comparison between accessibility in the physical and virtual worlds early on,

noting that much like it is expected that public buildings have wheelchair ramps, braille signage,

and accessible bathrooms, it should be expected that public virtual spaces should also be

accessible. It is also important to point out that it is much easier to design a site to be accessible

from the very beginning rather than going back and refitting it, much like it easier to design a

new building to be accessible rather than trying to retrofit it once you have built it. Usability.gov

and the non-profit Web Accessibility in Mind (webaim.org) are both great resources for

providing additional readings for classes, as is the chapter on accessibility in Health and Human

Services’ (2006) Research-based web design & usability guidelines.


WAVE and Accessible University. Visuals can be quite useful in helping students

understand usability. WebAIM’s online Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE) does a

great job showing students the extent of HTML-based accessibility problems on a web page. It

allows designers to test a webpage for accessibility: the user enters the page’s address, and then

WAVE analyzes the code. In addition to providing a list of errors and warnings, it also shows

users a visual map of where the errors are (see Fig. 1). WAVE will also let the user select which

standards to use, including WCAG 2.0 and Section 508. Combining a demonstration of WAVE

(http://wave.webaim.org) with the University of Washington’s Accessible University 2.0 website

(http://www.washington.edu/accesscomputing/AU/) can be a particularly effective way to

demonstrate how easy it is to miss accessibility problems without looking at the code. Accessible

University provides two versions of the website of a fictitious university, one that has severe

accessibility problems and one with the accessibility problems fixed. It is important to show the

students that despite the changes, the two sites look the same. Accessible University offers a

chance to send students on a scavenger hunt to find problems as well as the opportunity for them

to see what problems a user unable to use a mouse might encounter on a website. The site is also

a good opportunity to introduce WAVE by testing the problematic version of Accessible

University (see Fig. 1).


Figure 1. Screenshot of a WAVE analysis of Accessible University.

In Figure 1, WAVE has found 21 errors, including linked images with missing ALT

attributes and missing form labels. One of the nice things about the current version of WAVE is

that it allows the user to click on the error and pull up the code so that the user can get a better

feel for what caused the error. As useful as WAVE and similar tools are, it is critical that

students understand that automated testing tools are not a panacea. The software cannot identify

all accessibility problems. For example, if a designer set the ALT attribute for an image-based

home button to “sample image” rather than “home,” WAVE would not identify that section of

code as having a problem. The ALT attribute “sample image” is, of course, useless to someone

with a text reader. Faculty can reinforce the importance of accessibility to students by requiring

students to turn in WAVE reports for webpages they create.

Videos can also be quite helpful in getting students to better understand accessibility,

and one of the best is “Accessibility Introduction to the Screen Reader” featuring Neal Ewers of

the Trace Research Development Center (Anderson & Ewers, 2001). Ewers, who is blind, takes

the audience through the process of a blind person using a computer, highlighting problems


posed by both structural and code-based problems. He notes that one of the challenges blind

users face is that, unlike sited users, they do not have a visual overview of the page as a starting

point. Ewers presents Greg Vanderheiden’s analogy of this lack of an overview to reading

through a drinking straw. The video not only offers students an opportunity to build empathy and

to more fully appreciate the challenges blind users face, but it also helps students develop a

greater appreciation of the skills blind users develop. When Ewers sets his text reader on the

speed he usually has it on, it speaks so quickly that most people, including myself, are unable to

differentiate the words. The video does a wonderful job sparking class discussions and can also

be used as an out of class viewing assignment to set up a reading response.

After students have watched the video, faculty can help students get a hands on feel for

blind users accessing the web by having them use the Firefox add-on Fangs. Fangs (2010)

mimics a text reader by converting the web page to text with the additional descriptions that a

screen reader would give. Figure 2 shows an example of the Accessible University page rendered

using Fangs. Fangs offers several important advantages to having students try using an actual

screen reader such as JAWS (Youngblood, 2013). First is the cost—free. This is good for IT

budgets as well as for student budgets. Second, it can be installed on any computer using Firefox,

and installation does not require administrative privileges. This means that faculty do not have to

get IT staff involved unless they want to. Third, and this is important, students can use the

software in the lab and at home. As Youngblood (2013), drawing on Gilbert & Urquhart (2011),

points out in an article on teaching accessibility, blind users develop special skills for using

computers. Sitting a student down blindfolded at a computer with JAWS or some other screen

reader only simulates the experience of the recently blind, not the reality of an experienced blind


user. Readers interested in a more detailed discussion of teaching accessibility for users with a

vision disability should read Youngblood (2013).

Figure 2. Accessible University as rendered by Fangs.

Discussion

As with most skills, if students do not get a chance to employ usability and accessibility

best practices on a regular basis, they will not master them, thus it is important for faculty to

incorporate these issues throughout the course. Usability should be limited to just tasks.

Incomprehensible or poorly formatted text can make a site just as unusable as poorly designed

navigation. Faculty need to address this type of usability as well. One option to consider is

having students rewrite a section of text from an e-government website to better understand how

writing and formatting material correctly can make accessing information easier for users. This

type of exercise offers an opportunity for students to better internalize the problems users face

when trying to decipher poorly written copy. As an example, students reading text describing


what services are available in a county building might express confusion as to what the term

“probate” means, suggesting that the site designers may need to be clearer about what that

service is. Health and Human Services (2006) has several chapters that work well with this

assignment and explain why particular types of formatting, such as lists, help users scan material

more easily. Faculty might also consider having students conduct a usability/design analysis of

existing web sites using heuristics. A number of good heuristics are available including in Felke-

Morris (2012). This makes a great starter assignment for a web class at the beginning of the

semester as it helps introduce students to the idea of best practices as they are learning to write

code. Faculty should also consider requiring that students incorporate usability and accessibility

testing into web design projects. One option is to require students to write out a testing plan early

on in the development process and then have them document these processes in an end of project

report. Faculty might also consider bringing in a speaker from their campus students with

disabilities office. In most cases, this office will have someone knowledgeable about

accessibility as it applies to education, particularly Internet-based education. Faculty should also

keep an eye on court decisions and comments on web accessibility cases as well as Department

of Justice rulings on accessibility. As mentioned earlier, the Department of Justice is likely going

to adjust how ADA is applied to the Internet. These court cases and changes to ADA are fertile

discussion topics not only in production classes, but also in media law and media and society

classes.

Conclusion

This article offers justifications for including accessibility and usability in the media

curriculum, particularly in classes discussing interactive- and computer-based media. It also

provides faculty with sample exercises suitable for production courses. It is critical that students


involved in these course not learn how to implement an accessible and usable website, but why it

is important to do so. In teaching this, educators need rely on both cognitive and affective goals

so that future web managers not only use best practices, but have internalized why these concepts

are valuable and can be an advocate for all users. There are a number of good resources to draw

on for teaching students about usability and accessibility. One the keys to teaching students

about these issues is to use a textbook that incorporates usability and accessibility, preferably one

such as Felke-Morris (2012) that deals with the issues throughout the book rather than in

individual chapters. The advantage in this approach is that the students learn the skills as they go,

which may make them more likely to incorporate them into their workflow. It also stresses the

importance of the issues rather than treating them as an afterthought. This approach should help

with some of the concerns raised by the web managers in Lazar, et. al (2004), particularly their

concerns about lack of training. Health and Human Services’ (2006) research-based book on

usability is a good supplementary textbook and is available for free as a PDF through

Usability.gov. And students do love free textbooks. Here are some other sites that readers may

find helpful. Some of these sites are in the reference section, some of them are not. Most are free.

• Usability.gov. This is the US governments website on usability.

(http://wwww.usability.gov)

• Nielsen Norman Group Articles (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/)

• Pew Internet & American Life Project (http://pewinternet.org)

• W3C’s accessibility training modules. These have detailed discussions of how to

plan accessibility training (http://www.w3.org/WAI/training/)

• WebAIM (http://webaim.org/)


• AccessibleTech.org. Provides information on a range of issues on information

technology and accessibility. (http://www.accessibletech.org)

• AccessibleTech.org’s page on web accessibility court cases

(http://accessibletech.org/access_articles/legal/courtCases.php)

• Lynda.com. In addition to tutorials on software, Lynda.com also includes tutorials

on accessibility. (http://www.lynda.com)


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2.pdf

Biography Norman E. Youngblood is an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism

at Auburn University. He teaches courses in online media production, media technology history,

and media and society. He is the co-founder and co-director of Auburn’s Laboratory for

Usability, Communication, Interaction, and Accessibility (LUCIA), and his research focuses on

usability and accessibility, particularly as it relates to e-government. His peer-reviewed

publications include articles in Government Information Quarterly, IEEE Transactions in

Technical and Professional Communication, Newspaper Research Journal, and International


Journal of Sport Communication. He is also a co-author of the textbook, Multimedia

Foundations.

1 - youngblood corrected

Documents